EAT 357 – CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

- SCHEDULING –

by: SALWA MOHD ZAINI MAKHTAR

 SCHEDULING

 Scheduling Defined

 Gantt Charts

 Network Techniques: CPM

 Some Examples

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 OBJECTIVES

 Estimate the duration for each activity.

 Establish the estimated start time and required
completion time for the overall project.
 Calculate the earliest times at which each activity
can start and finish, based on the project’s
estimated start time

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 OBJECTIVES (Cont.)
 Calculate the latest times by which each activity
must start and finish in order to complete the
project by its required completion time.
 Determine the amount of positive or negative
slack/float.
 Identify the critical (longest) path of activities

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 SCHEDULING DEFINED

 The conversion of a project action plan into an operating

timetable
 Serves as the basis for monitoring and controlling the project.
 A major tool for the management of projects.

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 Benefits of Successful Scheduling

 Illustrates interdependence of all tasks.

 Identifies times when resources must be available.
 Facilitates communication throughout the project.
 Determines critical activities/critical path.
 Affects client expectations through establishment of
activities, milestones, and completion dates

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 A Process for Scheduling
1) Think
2) List activities
3) Arrange activities considering precedence and
relationships
4) Develop Gantt charts or Milestone charts and CPM
networks
5) Determine critical activities/critical path
6) Crash and adjust as necessary

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GANTT CHARTS

Gantt Chart

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 Gantt Charts
 Advantages

 Easy to understand
 Easy to show progress and status
 Easy to maintain
 Most popular view to communicate project status to client
and/or senior management

 Disadvantages

 Can be superficial
 Not always easy to see precedence, relationships

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 MILESTONE CHART
JAN FEB MAR

1 8 15 22 29 5 12 19 26 5 12 19 26

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 Milestone Chart
o “Milestone” events are the important events that could be
highlighted in the Gantt Chart.
o They are marked with a special symbol, often an upside-
down triangle.

o Managers who like nitty-gritty meat and potatoes definitely

prefer a milestone chart.
o Quite simply, this chart only shows the start/end dates for the
major activities and events.
o These charts are useful when making base estimates, usually
during the early stages of the project.

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 CPM NETWORK CHARTS

o The Critical Path project Method (CPM) is one of

several related techniques for doing planning.
o CPM is for projects that are made up of a number of
individual ‘activities’.

o If some of the activities to finish before they can start,

then the project becomes a complex web of activities.

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 CPM Network Charts – cont…
CPM can help you figure out:
• how long your complex project will take to
complete
• which activities are ‘critical’, meaning that they
have to be done on time or else the whole
project will take longer

If you put in information about the cost of each activity,

and how much it costs to speed up each activity, CPM can
help you figure out:
• Whether you should try to speed up the project,
and, if so,
• What is the optimal plan for speeding up the
project.
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 CPM Network Charts – cont…

 Advantages

 Allows visualization of task relationships

 Facilitates calculation of critical path
 Clarifies impact of decisions on downstream activities

 Disadvantages

 Complex, not easy to comprehend at a glance

 Charts don’t readily depict durations, dates, progress

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 CPM Network Charts – cont…
Steps in CPM Project Planning

1) Specify the individual activities

2) Determine the sequence of those activities
3) Draw a network diagram
4) Estimate the completion time for each activity
5) Identify the critical path

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 CPM Network Charts – cont…
***Steps in CPM Project Planning

1) Specify the individual activities

An activity is a specific task. It gets something done. An activity

can have these properties:

• Names of any other activities that have to be completed

before this one can start
• A projected normal time duration
• A cost to complete (optional)
• A shorter time to complete on a crash basis (optional)
• The higher cost of completing it on a crash basis
(optional)

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 CPM Network Charts – cont…
2) Determine the sequence of those activities

Some activities are dependent on the completion of others. A

listing of the immediate predecessors of each activity is useful
foe constructing the CPM network diagram.

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 CPM Network Charts – cont…
Activity Description Required Duration
Predecessor

A Wake up None 5 mins

B Wash face/ Brush teeth A 5

C Style hair B 2
D Get dressed C,F 5
E Drive to work D 20
F Watch TV A 10
G Eat breakfast D 10
H Park E,G 3

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 CPM Network Charts – cont…
3) Draw a network diagram

Once the activities and their sequencing have been defined,

the CPM diagram can be drawn.

Figure: Network Diagram

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 CPM Network Charts – cont…
There are 2 well-known types of diagrams used by most
project managers:

• AON: Activity-on-Node
• AOA: Activity-on-Arrow

AON

Activity-on-Node (AON) diagrams represent activities as

NODES. Nodes are small boxes or circles that connect
arrows. The arrows in this case show the sequence of the
activities. AON is the most popular method.

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 CPM Network Charts – cont…
Based on the get-ready-for-work activities listed above,
here is a sample AON network diagram:

Figure: Activity-on-Node (AON) Diagram

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 CPM Network Charts – cont…
AOA

Activity-on-Arrow diagrams represent activities as

arrows. Unlike AON, here nodes are used to connect the
arrows. In AOA, only finish-to-start relationships can be
used.
AOA isn't used as widely as AON, but it still has loyal
fans. What confuses people about AOA is the use of
"dummy" activities to show dependencies (but not
durations).
Based on the activities listed above, here is a sample AOA
network diagram, dummy included (the dummy is the
dashed line).

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CPM Network Charts – cont…

Figure : Activity-on-Arrow (AOA) Diagram

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 CPM Network Charts – cont…
4) Estimate the completion time for each activity

The time required to complete each activity can be estimated

using past experience or the estimates of knowledge persons.

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 CPM Network Charts – cont…
5) Identify the critical path

• The critical path is the longest path in the diagram.

• The activities that make up the critical path have the least
slack/float.
• All activities with this value are on the critical path.

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 TYPES OF CRITICAL PATHS

• Noncritical paths have positive values of total

slack/total float.
• Critical paths have zero or negative values of
total slack/total float.
• The most critical path is the longest critical
path.

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 Terms that used in critical path method (CPM)

DURATION (D)

• is the amount of time our activity takes to complete.

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 Terms that used in critical path method (CPM)

EARLIEST START (ES)

• is the earliest time at which a particular activity can
begin.

EARLIEST FINISH (EF)

• is the earliest time by which a particular
activity can be completed.
• EF = ES + D

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 Terms that used in critical path method (CPM)

LATEST START (LS)

o is the latest time an activity must be finished in
order for the entire project to be completed by its
completion time.
o LS = LF - D

LATEST FINISH (LF)

o is the latest time an activity must be finished in
order for the entire project to be completed by its
completion time.
o LF = LS + D
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 Terms that used in critical path method (CPM)

TOTAL SLACK (TS) OR TOTAL FLOAT (TF), DEFINED

is the difference between the calculated earliest
finish time of the very last activity and the
project’s required completion time.
Total Float = LF - EF or
Total Float = LS - ES

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 Terms that used in critical path method (CPM)

FREE FLOAT (FF)

• The amount of time an activity can be delayed
without delaying the start of other activities.
• It is the relative difference between the amounts
of total slack for activities entering into the same
activity.
• It is always a positive value.
• FF=ESB - EFA

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 EXAMPLE 1
a) Table 1 shows activities for the following project, and the relation between
other activities within the time limit to settle each activity. From Table 1,
draw:
i) Bar chart or Gantt chart
ii) Network diagram for critical path method (CPM)

for all activities .

b) Then, for each activity, calculate:

i) Earliest start
ii) Earliest finish
iii) Latest start
iv) Latest finish

State the critical activities.

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 EXAMPLE 1 (AON)

Table 1

Activity Required Predecessor Duration

A (None) 5 weeks
B A 2
C A 4
D B 5
E B 5
F C 5
G E,F 2
H D 3
I G,H 5

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 EXAMPLE 2 (AON)

Table 2

Activity Required Predecessor Duration

A (None) 3 months
B (None) 4
C (None) 5
D A 8
E A,B 3
F C 5

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 ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS

 In the past, relationships between activities were defined as

being finish-to-start (FS), whereby the preceeding activity
must be finished before the succeeding activity can start.
 Other types of relationships are also encountered, namely,
start-to-start (SS), finish-to finish (FF) and start-to-finish (SF).
 The limitation s of the scheduling software will dictate the
restrictions to be placed on defining the relationships
between activities.
 These relationships are used to organize activities that
overlap to some degree or that have a delay time of some
sort between them.

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 Finish-to-start (FS)

• (x/#) Activity x must finish # days before this

activity can begin. 36
 Start-to-start (SS)

• (xSS/#) The # of days after activity x starts

that this activity can begin. 37
 Finish-to-finish (FF)

• (xFF/#) This activity cannot finish until #

days after x is completed. 38
 Start-to-finish (SF)

• (xSF/#) This activity must finish # days

before x can start. 39
THANK YOU

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